NOISE.

The NY Times review of Francis Spufford’s The Child That Books Built (by James Shapiro, Feb. 2) is no longer online, but here’s a nice quote from it; it follows a description of Spufford’s learning to read by tackling The Hobbit as a six-year-old in bed with the mumps:

Spufford wonders in retrospect how he could have gotten the gist of Tolkien’s novel while unfamiliar with so many of the words. He finds an explanation in the research of Claude Shannon, a mathematician who worked for Bell Telephone and discovered that even if a third of its words were garbled, the message gets through: “There is no difference between a phone call one-third obscured by static on the line, a manuscript one-third eaten by mice and a printed page one-third of whose words you don’t know. Ignorance is just a kind of noise.”

Comments

I have that book, and I really liked his descriptions of childhood reading — although my own experience was closer to Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s in “Ruined By Reading.” I have to admit I liked his ruminations on porn a little less, but it was still interesting. I haven’t seen many books on how children learn to decode books and what it means to the bookish kids to grow up half here and half There, in the land of the Word, and it’s a very moving topic to me (guess why).

I also read The Hobbit at age six [I found it horribly dark and unpleasant - the giant spider scene particularly nauseated me] but could already read fairly well by that age.

Bizarrely, though, I thought I couldn’t read. At school we worked carefully through books with six or seven words a page ["Peter and Jane are in the garden."] and I sincerely did not grasp that this was the same activity as when I read normally laid-out books by myself at home. I believe now that I felt the schoolwork was some kind of very important “reading theory” I couldn’t afford to neglect.

The moment when my teachers and I realised that me reading Agatha Christie novels at home also counted as “reading” was a pretty puzzling realisation for all of us.

Bizarrely enough although I was read to at home and loved it I had trouble reading at first, on my own, and actually HATED reading in kindergarten or whenever (bizarre, isn’t it!). I remember the feeling because it’s so alien. Then, all of a sudden, ba-ping — the words on the page magically came together and made sense. I still remember the readers: one was about a fox and one about a pig. I didn’t practice like the nuns wanted me to (I was sent to Montessori) (and that’s telling, isn’t it). Something similar happened to me with spelling, which I had also sucked at: I realized with “pumpkin” you could break it down into “pump” and “kin” and sound it out, and after that I was an excellent speller. It was odd. It was like synethesis….something in my head just came together.

I also came across that big spider at a young age. Now I’m wondering if it is responsible for my arachnophobia. Actually, I was terrified by the Black Rabbit of Inle at six or seven. I think he is responsible for about three years of therapy all by his little supernatural self.

This phenomemon is called redundancy, I believe. You can write a sentence sxbstxtxtxng xll thx vxwxls wxth xxs xnd yxx cxn stxll mxkx xt xxt prxttx mxch, bxt nxt cxmplxtxlxy. How much of language is redundant? That would be a fascinating area for language hat to explore.

On the first day of first grade we all stood in a circle, and my peers each said they wanted to learn to read and/or write and/or do arithmetic. Came my turn – oh the embarrassment – I said “I dunno” because I already `knew’ all that.

And you can support my book habit without even spending money on me by following my Amazon links to do your shopping (if, of course, you like shopping on Amazon); I get a small percentage of every dollar spent while someone is following my referral links, and every month I get a gift certificate that allows me to buy a few books (or, if someone has bought a big-ticket item, even more). You will not only get your purchases, you will get my blessings and a karmic boost!

Favorite rave review, by Teju Cole:
"Evidence that the internet is not as idiotic as it often looks. This site is called Language Hat and it deals with many issues of a linguistic flavor. It's a beacon of attentiveness and crisp thinking, and an excellent substitute for the daily news."

From "commonbeauty"

(Cole's blog circa 2003)

All comments are copyright their original posters. Only messages signed "languagehat" are property of and attributable to languagehat.com. All other messages and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of languagehat.com. Languagehat.com does not endorse any potential defamatory opinions of readers, and readers should post opinions regarding third parties at their own risk. Languagehat.com reserves the right to alter or delete any questionable material posted on this site.